Tolstoy: What Can Beauty Teach Us? (3/4)

08/15/19 • 45 min

EPISODE SUMMARY
There are brief moments in our lives where we are thrust out of ourselves and granted to see life as exceptionally magnificent, but also too close to touch, and impossible to fathom. For some people, it is love, poetry, friendship or maybe a film which causes us to see our world as a beautiful and cohesive whole for a fleeting and mysterious moment. For Andrei, it is the sky over a battlefield, a few notes in a song, and the cold grip of death. What do these moments of profound insight and deep emotion show us about life?

EPISODE NOTES

Buy War and Peace and actually read (or listen) to it! You won't regret it.
See our full introduction to the series and more information on our website. wellreadchristian.com/tolstoys-war-and-peace
The intro music for this series is a section from a piece by Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844—1908) titled The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. Rimsky-Korsakov was a contemporary of Leo Tolstoy and my favorite Russian composer of the era. I hope you enjoy the segment and the podcast.
The artwork is titled Battle of Moscow, 7th September 1812, painted in 1822 by Louis-François Lejeune.
Episode title changed from "What Can Our Intuitions Tell Us About Reality?" to "What Can Beauty Teach Us?" on 8/20/19

Links
Visit our website: wellreadchristian.com
Check our our blog: wellreadchristian.com/blog
facebook: facebook.com/wellreadchristian
twitter: twitter.com/WellReadChrist1

EPISODE NOTES

Buy War and Peace and actually read (or listen) to it! You won't regret it.
See our full introduction to the series and more information on our website. wellreadchristian.com/tolstoys-war-and-peace
The intro music for this series is a section from a piece by Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844—1908) titled The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. Rimsky-Korsakov was a contemporary of Leo Tolstoy and my favorite Russian composer of the era. I hope you enjoy the segment and the podcast.
The artwork is titled Battle of Moscow, 7th September 1812, painted in 1822 by Louis-François Lejeune.
Episode title changed from "What Can Our Intuitions Tell Us About Reality?" to "What Can Beauty Teach Us?" on 8/20/19

Links
Visit our website: wellreadchristian.com
Check our our blog: wellreadchristian.com/blog
facebook: facebook.com/wellreadchristian
twitter: twitter.com/WellReadChrist1

Previous Episode

Tolstoy: Can We Find The Meaning of Life? (2/4)

Description
Pierre Bezukhov searches for meaning in high society, sacrifice, relationships and religion, but ultimately he finds these things purposeless. Seth Andrews, host of The Thinking Atheist, says that the question of meaning is a bad question. Jordan Peterson says that personal responsibility provides an adequate foundation for meaning. St. Augustine says our hearts are restless until they find God. Leo Tolstoy says we have the whole question backwards.

References

Buy War and Peace and actually read (or listen) to it! You won't regret it.
I recommend this translation and edition.
See more information on this episode on our website. wellreadchristian.com/tolstoy-can-we-find-the-meaning-of-life
The intro music for this series is a section from a piece by Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844—1908) titled The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. Rimsky-Korsakov was a contemporary of Leo Tolstoy and my favorite Russian composer of the era. I hope you enjoy the segment and the podcast.
The artwork is titled Battle of Moscow, 7th September 1812, painted in 1822 by Louis-François Lejeune.

Links
Visit our website: wellreadchristian.com
Check our our blog: wellreadchristian.com/blog
facebook: facebook.com/wellreadchristian
twitter: twitter.com/WellReadChrist1

Next Episode

Tolstoy: Free Will, History, and Human Motivation (4/4)

Can human beings determine their own destiny, or are we the inevitable product of our environment and nature? Sam Harris is convinced that free will is an illusion. After all, if the world is just matter and motion, how could there be free will? Not everyone agrees with Harris, however, and many thinkers see free will as a self-evident axiom on which morality is based. The question of free will is one that every serious thinker must consider, and for Tolstoy, this is an essential prerequisite for the question of human motivation and therefore the cause and direction of history.

Notes

The intro music for this series is a section from a piece by Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844—1908) titled The Sea and Sinbad's Ship. Rimsky-Korsakov was a contemporary of Leo Tolstoy and my favorite Russian composer of the era. I hope you enjoy the segment and the podcast.
The artwork is titled Battle of Moscow, 7th September 1812, painted in 1822 by Louis-François Lejeune.

Links
Visit our website: https://www.wellreadchristian.com
Check our our blog: https://www.wellreadchristian.com/blog
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wellreadchristian
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/WellReadChrist1
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfGxz4OH1-hVD0fL9AWR4Xg